TN Assembly: 100 years of enacting path-breaking, landmark legislations

Chennai

Though the members were elected to the Legislative Council by eligible voters in November 1920, the House or the Council was convened in January 1921.

A century later, the TN Legislative Council stands tall, creating history not just in the presidency/state, but the whole nation, in its every stride. It might be fair to say that the history of the state Assembly and the nation went hand in hand in the last century. Such is the extent to which the Assembly has led the rest of the nation from the front on various fronts.

Be it reservation of jobs or allowing women’s suffrage or naming a state after a language or establishing a regional language department in Madras University in Colonial era or giving property rights to women or abolishing common entrance tests or acknowledging third gender and creating welfare board for them or nationalising private service, there are numerous firsts for TN Assembly to feel proud of.

The first affirmative action, better known now as reservation, to give fair opportunity to all in government jobs was taken during the Subburaya Reddiyar led Justice Party government in August 1921. ‘Communal’ GO of 1921 was the first reservation law passed by an Assembly in the subcontinent. From there, the same Assembly has traveled so far as to take the reservation limit to 69 per cent (highest in the country) and include the same in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution during the 1991-96 J Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK regime.

Proponents of 21st century feminist movement should owe it to the early occupants of the TN Assembly, precisely, the Justice Party led government which was the first to allow women’s suffrage way back in 1921. Elected as the first woman representative of a legislative council in 1926, Dr Muthulakshmi Reddy got the council to abolish the Devadasi system, setting the trend for women empowerment.

Equally significant is the Assembly naming or renaming a state after a language. It was the same TN Assembly which renamed Madras Presidency as Tamil Nadu when CN Annadurai led DMK regime was formed in 1967. Passing legislation to legalise self-respect marriages (marriage without mantras) in the Anna led government of 1967 was another watershed moment of the Assembly’s history. At least a few years prior to the infamous 1975 emergency when banks were nationalised, the state Assembly passed laws to nationalise private bus service in 1972 under then Karunanidhi led DMK regime. A decade later, the same Assembly under Karunanidhi passed a legislation giving equal property rights to women in 1989, more than a decade and a half before the Congress-led UPA-I passed a national legislation. The prestigious Assembly passed landmark legislations to abolish Common Entrance Test for professional education, provide free graduate education for first generation graduates and even create a separate welfare board for transgenders.

Dravidian scholar and former Head of history department of Vivekananda college A Karunanandan said; “Questioning the celebration of the Assembly centenary is wrong. We had a Legislative Council prior to 1921, but the members were not elected by people. It was only after 1921 that persons elected by the people started framing the laws.”“The myth that Indians cannot govern themselves was broken after 1921. The right of people to elect their representatives was ensured in 1921. Therefore, 1921 should be the benchmark for the centenary,” he added.